skill and vigor to the task of smothering the protests of the newspaper rebelsthe American reporters and the Northcliffe and one or two other independent British correspondents. Virtually all the French accredited reporters and the majority of the British journalists in Paris were docile servants of their govern ments.

They were content to write what they were told to write. Several of them were members of the British secret service, devoting most of their time to finding out and reporting important information for

the British delegation. It was quite different at 4, Place de la Concorde, where the American newspaper "soviet" held stormy sessions and told the Terrible Ten a thing or two. William Allen White presided at the most memorable of the meetings when

The proceedings of a peace conference are far more analogous to the meetings of a cabinet than to those of a legislature. Nobody has ever suggested that cabinet meetings should be held in public, and if they were so held, the work of government would become impossible.

This shrewd decision by M. Clemen

the last losing stand was made for "open covenants." Mark Sullivan and Berton Braley of "Colliers" and Laurence Hills of "The Sun" carried a "no surrender" motion, recorded by one of the fair reporterettes who acted as secretary. M. Clemenceau was as good as his word to Mr. Wilson. He gave the American correspondents a brief appearance of victory. They were admitted to the picturesque pantomime of the Hall of the Clock, where their presence could do no harm, but they were "shooed" away from the meetings where actual business was done. It was M. Clemenceau who dictated the final word to the press, pronounced by the Supreme Council as follows:

ceau may have saved Mr. Wilson's face and shut up the newspaper rebels; but nobody could shut up Mr. Hughes.

On January 28 the British war cabinet accepted and approved the man

datory principle. Next forenoon the delegation of the British Empire was summoned to meet at Mr. Lloyd George's rooms in the villa at 23 rue Nitot. In addition to the British premier, there were present: Mr. George N. Barnes, labor member of the cabinet; Sir Robert Borden

and Sir George Foster for Canada; Mr. Hughes for Australia; General Smuts for South Africa; Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward for New Zealand; Sir William Lloyd for Newfoundland, Mr. E. S. Montagu, the secretary for India, the Maharajah of Bikanir, Lord Sinha, Sir Maurice Hankey, and three subordinate secretaries. The meeting was opened about eleven-thirty, dangerously close to tiffin-time. Mr. Lloyd George explained the reasons why the war cabinet had decided to accept the mandatory principle. All was going nicely when Mr. Hughes got upon his feet. What he said, I am told, blistered the ceiling of the Villa Nitot.

It was all very well for Mr. Wilson to

breathe fine phrases about mandatories and Utopia, but was that to be Australia's recompense for bleeding herself white in defense of the empire? The prime minister asked Australia and New Zealand to consent to suicide. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was being favored at the expense of the safety of the empire. Japan was being brought to their shores, under cover of the Alliance, and they were not to be permitted to fortify the islands given them and then snatched out of their hands under the paw of an Utopian experiment!

That was the substance of the Australian's argument. Mr. Hughes was angry, and when this little man is angry he can talk the hind legs off any donkey.

Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward supported Mr. Hughes, but Mr. Lloyd George insisted that he had no choice in the matter. If the delegation of the British Empire could not see its way to sustain the war cabinet, that of course would create a situation which he would be bound to lay before others. Mr. Wilson was insistent. He had felt it necessary to concede this point to the President; and, after all, it was only a question of shadow and not a question of substance.

Mr. Hughes had been listening with both hands clapped over his best right ear. He caught the word "shadow." Jumping to his feet, he drew a lurid picture of "yellow shadows in the South Seas." Again, he charged that Australia's and New Zealand's interests were being sacrificed at the command of Japan. Every time Japan was mentioned, Premier Hughes "saw red."

Mr. Lloyd George snatched victory by his hint at the danger of collapse of the coalition cabinet. Mr. Hughes was defeated, and that made him more defiant. He set out to oppose the Japanese all along the line and to lift Mr. Wilson's scalp and hang it on his very yellow watch-chain. The Northcliffe newspapers, although friendly to the Japanese, extended a kindly ear to the stormy petrel of the Pacific. The Paris correspondent of "The Times" summarized the situation as follows:

Australians do not view with any satisfaction the approach of Japan to their

shores, and while they have been pleased by the great and successful effort of the Imperial government to obtain adequate representation of the Dominions in the Conference, they feel that in this matter European opinion does not properly appreciate their point of view. In accordance with the arrangement come to between Great Britain and Japan, the Equator would form the limit of Japanese extension to the South. This would therefore confirm the Japanese in their possession and administration of the Marshall and Caroline Islands. These islands, several hundred in number, consist for the main part, of little coral atolls, and are a sort of dust of the Pacific Ocean. What advantages, asks Australia, can Japan be seeking in the possession of territories where there is practically no Japanese population; where indeed there is practically no population at all to make them desirable as a market and which produce but very little for export purposes? The strategic importance of these two groups of islands has, with the growth and possible development of the submarine, become very considerable, indeed.

The American point of view-and America is concerned because of her interest both in the Panama Canal and the Philippines-is that the (British) Imperial Government should take over the whole of the German colonies in the Pacific and administer them under the League of Nations.

The attitude of Great Britain would seem to be that she is more or less bound by agreements with Japan to hand over to Japan the Caroline and the Marshall Islands, and that the rest of the German Colonies should become the direct possessions of the Dominions.

This despatch was filed before Paris was apprised of the decision of the war cabinet. That was announced immediately after the meeting of the delegation of the British Empire, and the "Daily Mail" of January 30 printed the storm clouds in purple ink. It declared that the war cabinet's acceptance of Mr. Wilson's theory

Involves an admission that the treaties made with Japan regarding her retention of the North Pacific Islands, with the Arabs regarding Syria, and the understanding

with the French regarding the Cameroons, must be arbitrarily modified if not torn up. General Botha was outspoken in predicting a dangerous encouragement of rebellion in South Africa. The Italians began to be impatient about Fiume. The Japanese stood upon the letter of the secret treaties. Borden spoke up for the President, and said very quietly, "Canada has no secret treaties."

He

These were the circumstances in which Baron Makino, the Japanese leader, asked the conference and the world to set aside all out-of-date prejudices, "including race prejudice." proposed an article for the covenant intended to guarantee all aliens against unjust discrimination. Mr. Hughes vetoed it. To prevent a rupture in February, Mr. Wilson had to drop his covenant article protecting religious minorities. Baron Makino very cleverly had tacked the racial rampart to the religious safeguard. Both had to be adopted or dropped.

On the morning that the draft covenant was ready for the plenary session of the conference, and while Mr. Wilson was polishing off his speech and getting ready to leave for home and Mr. Lodge, Baron Makino and Viscount Chinda dropped in at the Crillon for a friendly chat with Colonel House. While Makino was talking with the colonel, Chinda ran his eyes over the freshly printed covenant. He missed the racial religious clause.

"It is not here," he said. "Perhaps it is a printer's error?"

House sighed with deep sympathy. "I'm sorry," he said. "It was dropped out at the last moment."

The baron and viscount took their defeat gracefully. They continued to preach the gospel of racial and national equality. Mr. Hughes kept up his campaign, "Australia for Australians, and keep your eye skinned for the Jap."

The covenant that Mr. Wilson offered to Mr. Lodge and the American people was a dead horse. It was killed under the wire by Hughes. Now, the little Australian beat his opponents like a gentleman. He trimmed the President to the king's taste. This was how he did it:

He never forgot the way in which

David Lloyd George forced his Australian hand on January 29. So the Pacific petrel had a bone to pick with David as well as with Wilson. Like his pet aversion, the Japanese baron, he bided his time. Every now and then, just to show that he was alive and kicking, he took a quiet fling at the "Japanese peril." Germany being a dead issue, "Slap the Jap" was already the vogue. Makino and Chinda had two strings to their bows, racial equality and Kiaochau, pledged to Japan by England, France, Russia, and Italy. They insisted upon keeping the two subjects apart. They saw themselves defeated on the mandatory principle and compulsory reduction of armaments. The President's attitude on Fiume presaged a similar attitude on Kiao-chau. The same principle was at stake, with these two important distinctions: Kiao-chau is a port in China, an ally, even though, as alleged, "a lame duck ally," and the Japanese had captured Kiao-chau from the Germans. Fiume was in enemy territory. It was an Allied conquest, not an Italian conquest. Kiao-chau had not been captured by the Chinese, who had gone to war among themselves instead of helping to defeat the Germans. The Japanese held Kiao-chau and insisted upon doing business with China directly. Obviously, if the conference was to demand of Japan the surrender of Kiao-chau to China, there must be some attempt to meet the Japanese in a spirit of justice. The racial equality proposal offered the only opportunity. Peacemakers friendly to all sides endeavored to hammer that into the hard heads of American delegates. It was the one particular move from the mere suggestion of which the Japanese shied. They were wise enough to know that it would place them at an immediate disadvantage. Mr. Hughes saw the danger.

The Pacific petrel flapped his wings and flew over to the African and AngloIndian experts. He taught them to crow his own "Slap the Jap" songs to the morn. With this coalition behind him, he delivered his ultimatum to Lloyd George:

"If you consent to Japanese equality, I leave the conference, and the other dominions will follow me."

Lloyd George was driven into a corner. The Japanese were permitted to be defeated on racial equality on April 11. Two weeks later the Italians screamed themselves out of the conference. The Japanese demanded a decision on Kiao-chau. Were they to be defeated on everything?

"No Japanese Government could stand up under such humiliation," said Viscount Chinda to one of the American delegates. The Hara cabinet was already tottering under the pressure of adverse news from Paris.

Mr. Lloyd George told Mr. Wilson that he would not oppose Hughes or break the British agreements with Japan. If he could have patched up a peace with Hughes, he might have arranged a satisfactory compromise with Makino. If the Japanese and Australians, or either of them, left the conference, there would be only one thing for England to do. England, imperial sovereign of Australia, must stand by her Pacific commonwealth; England must stand by her ally, Japan. The President sighed, and threw up the Kiao-chau sponge. Little Mr. Hughes won the final bout.

It was late afternoon in a long, narrow salon of the Quai d'Orsay, not the Hall of the Clock, but a more modern room. The day was Monday, April 28. The League of Nations was being born without a racial or national equality hair on its head. Mr. Wilson had made public confession of the fact that it was the proudest and happiest moment of his life. M. Clemenceau was sitting back in his chair, grinning like an aged imp of mischief. Mr. Balfour was endeavoring not to look bored. Lord Robert Cecil was shaking hands with very common persons. Baron Makino, dignified, debonair, agreeable, arose and glanced over at the empty places left vacant by

the angry Romans who had crossed their Rubicon and returned to the Tiber. The baron bowed to M. Clemenceau and the President, and in delicate, carefully chosen English sentences told the Conference of Paris that it had outraged the honor of Japan. His people would continue to urge racial equality. The speech was one of the shortest and most memorable of the great congress. It made a profound impression. There was a picturesque scene at the close.

William Morris Hughes, Premier of Australia, got up from his chair. In one hand he had a handsome moroccobound book, in the other a gold fountain-pen, made in the U. S. A. He strolled down the table until he was just behind Marquis Saionji and Baron Makino. He whispered something to the baron, extending the book and pen. Makino smiled, and bowed low with true Japanese courtesy. He spoke in Japanese to Saionji, took the book and the pen from Hughes, and set them in front of the marquis. The marquis beamed upon the leading "Jap Slapper" in Paris, took the pen in his hand, and signed "Saionji" in the book. Makino added his autograph, and passed pen and book to Chinda, Matsui, Ijuim, and General Nara. All the Japanese signed their names, and bowed to the South Sea statesman. Each bow was a low, court courtesy of the Meiji period. William Morris Hughes bent his back until his spine creaked, returning bow for bow. He went to his chair as happy as a boy just out of school, and glanced proudly at the pages of the little book.

Mrs. Hughes wanted the Japanese signatures for her autograph-book. She got them. She can get anything under the sun from her "own little man," the petrel of the Pacific, and she is the one person in the world who can.

Window-Yearners

Illustrations by John R. Neill

Y brother is a pleasant person, with a splendid big face like that of an amiable pirate. He roars out his beliefs and disbeliefs in a hearty manner, yet he is the victim of restraints and modesties not at all in keeping with the rest of his bucaneering ways.

One inhibition of this vigorous person is his attitude toward his neighbor's window. Here he accentuates the sophistication, or delicacy, which makes him, for me, too pious. The window of any house, no matter how detached and inviting, no matter how ingratiatingly the curtains are pulled aside, no matter how far the shades may be snapped up, is holy ground to my brother. The top floors, for his eyes, are taboo; the middle floors, sacrosanct; the ground floors, sanhedrim.

I am not like that; the watery-green glare of a parlor Welsbach is to me vision; the old-fashioned, glass-dripping chandeliers, the new-fashioned, bulbenmeshed "indirect lighting" are all devices that reveal me warm, comfort

ing pictures of indoor humanity. In summer a misty lamp seen through the crepuscle of wire mosquito-netting is my dim moon of poetry, and in winter the red-shaded electrolier, slanting on powdered faces and "permanent waves," gives me spicy morsels of cherry-colored life. I do not share the lofty detachments of my brother.

Maybe this window magnetism is older than I know. Perhaps, on incredibly dark nights when the stars were bright holes over the howling black forest, the Pilgrim Fathers unconsciously started window-yearning. Perhaps as they in their stern, tranced bravery read the great Word by the flare of the pine-knot, some inquiring little Indian stole away from the parental wigwam and moccasined down to the stockades to see what the pale-faces were like, anyhow. Then if Mrs. Pilgrim Father had been unwise enough to leave the wooden shutters unbarred, who knows but that this little Indian radical got that first gleam of other times, other manners, that led him away from the "narrowness" of his scalping and war-dance fathers. Wit